Sarah
by GlassSplinter
Summary: Sarah's point of view of her life during and after the time of the Labyrinth.
1. Stagelights

Disclaimer: I retain all rights to everything in this story, except for anything that already belongs to the current copyright holders of the film "Labyrinth" or any official media pertaining thereof.

Sarah

She was a woman of action. She never stopped, not once, for fear that once she did, her spotlight would be lost. Sarah lived for the moment, and the moment lived for Sarah. When she was acting, she could pretend that she wasn't herself, that she was someone braver, stronger. She could make up stories where _she_ was the smart one. Where she quipped, and majestically spun around, walking away from the villain and towards the audience. Where she lifted her face to the light and said her lines, villain defeated on the floor behind her. When she was acting, she could pretend she was on stage.

On stage, where she wasn't the girl who made her parents miserable, or the one who sewed dresses out of rags. Where she didn't take cover from the cruel insults flung her way, instead raising her head to the sunlight, and proclaiming proudly, that they have no power over her. They never had, and they never will. How it would be if just once, someone stared at her entranced, focused on her story. The tragedy was, that Sarah didn't feel real unless she was with people. People who looked at her and saw her falling. People to hear her when she cried. How it would be to have someone to act with! They could say their lines in unison, improvising for hours on end. The story would never stop. It would live on in the space between the both of them, every time reinventing itself. And their characters would emerge, fresh and new every time.

Oh, how Sarah liked to play with people.


	2. Stepsister

Playing with people was hard work, Sarah realized, when they weren't cooperating. Not that her parents ever cooperated. And yet, each time she was disappointed. She tried to forgive them, she really did. After all, they couldn't see the fairies, the goblins, or the princes. They only saw her, running around by herself. So what were they supposed to do? Supposed to think?

Yet still there was an anger in her, that feeling of betrayal when her closest kin didn't even try to _know_ her. Her father was always off with Karen or fussing over Toby. The moment they'd had Toby, it was as if she'd disappeared.

So the feeling of anger grew. Over time it turned into resentment. Not only at her father, but strangely, at her mother too. She wasn't angry at her mother though. After all, she was off acting in her plays, something Sarah herself would like to do someday. Linda needed to travel, it couldn't be helped.

But her father, her father was right there. He was right there, and he saw her, day after day. And okay, sometimes she wasn't fair with him, but even when she was on her best behavior he just went about his business like she wasn't there. It wasn't always like that.

But that was besides the point. The point was, her stepmother was oblivious. Karen knew nothing about what was happening in the family. She imposed rules where there used to be none, gave orders in a tone that Sarah's real mother would have never used.

Linda respected Sarah. She loved her, as a mother should. And Sarah, when she was asked to do something, wouldn't feel as awful as she did when following Karen's 'orders'.

Karen just expected Sarah to do her bidding. She was the adult, and that was how things were done. She constantly hassled Sarah about spending more 'bonding time', and yet put in no real effort to view her as a person. In Karen's mind, she was just an accessory, the daughter of the man she had just married.

First she was an accessory, and then she was a nuisance. A slight bother at the back of Karen's throat. When Sarah became a teenager, Karen saw an opportunity and started looking to marry her off. She'd already been micromanaging her grades in school, planning career options. Karen called it, 'trying to be the best mother she could be'.

Sarah was amazed that her father was oblivious to all of this. She had finally figured out what was happening when he decided to forego her fourteenth birthday present, in favor of a new crib for Tony. Apparently, her parents decided that she was enough of an adult to ignore, and take care of the baby, and mind the house, and get rid of, but her life was still not her own. They treated her like a servant, except a servant would get paid.

So she likened herself to fairytale heroines. Those were often treated like servants. Those often had evil stepmothers and siblings. Although logically, Sarah knew that Toby was blameless in all of this, (perhaps the most blameless of all), Sarah couldn't help but harbor ill will toward him for coming out of Karen.

'And does that make me the evil stepsister?' She wondered.

**- Stepsister**


	3. Substantiate

_3_** Substantiate**

One night, she was upset, and reading a story to Toby. The story was from a red leather bound book that Jeremy had given her, and one that she treasured dearly. She'd acted out a scene from the play, and suddenly, all the lights went out. All at once, Sarah felt a strange sort of angst towards the future, as if her mind was not of sound mind at all, but rattling about like her heart in its rib cage. The window had opened by itself, she thought, as the wind brushed the hair against her face. The wind was slightly colder than room temperature, and smelled crisp and fresh, as if from another world. Not like the manicured New England air at all.

Before Sarah even turned, she knew that the room in front of her would be dark and empty, spacious, but with nooks and crannies one could break a leg in. She knew, just as she knew that her father was losing his heart to an evil stepmother, that Toby was not crying in his crib, that Toby was not there at all, that something, or some_one_ else was there. At the window, blocking the wind but not blocking the wind. No, it _was_ the wind that had taken Toby. And so, Sarah entered the room.

She paid no heed to the strange wobbly things at her feet, as she headed towards the crib and knew, without doubt, what she'd find.

Which was why she was so surprised when she found it.

The man in front of her was unreal. He looked as though he would have never fit into that room, and yet he did, as though his very presence made the room bigger. The little scrambling things she knew were there, materialized at her feet, careful not to touch her, or the creature in front of her. Creature, that was it. His face was part obscured in shadow, part achingly beautiful. He was not human, nor could have ever been human, and was not of this world. All this Sarah knew, even as she knew herself, to be there in this room. She remembered Toby and his absence, and looked up at the being's face.

It jarred her to see him smile at her. In theory, he existed, but fantastical creatures always were observed. They were written about in stories, and kept to the screen or the page. Not having thoughts of their own, and certainly not their own actions or opinions. Sarah gulped.

"I've brought you a gift,"

Suddenly, her world was validated. All those nights spent play-acting, all those afternoons in the park only with Merlin and her costumes, all the times her mother would call only to hang up two minutes later, claiming she was busy; all that was confirmed for Sarah in that moment. She had a brand new world around her, and one hell of a problem.

Sarah had her feet on the ground, and it was solid.


End file.
